


The Man Is Prologue (Countdown)

by Gyptian



Series: Nevertheless, She Regenerated (And Found More Friends) [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Asexual Awareness Week, Asexual Character, Asexual Doctor (Doctor Who), Asexual Relationship, Epic Friendship, Episode: s10e12 The Doctor Falls, Gen, Pre-Regeneration, Spoilers, Spoilers for Episode: s10e11 World Enough and Time, Spoilers for Episode: s10e12 The Doctor Falls, Star-crossed friends, Star-crossed soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 05:51:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16362068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gyptian/pseuds/Gyptian
Summary: A possible explanation of why the Doctor turned into a woman… after the Master did it first.





	The Man Is Prologue (Countdown)

**Author's Note:**

> Series 11 is off to a great start and it’s asexual awareness week (check out the collection for more ace stories!). All quotations are either the Doctor or Missy speaking in the series 10 finale (the one with Peter Capaldi's Doctor and Bill Potts).

**10.** _“Timelords are friends with each other, dear, everything else is cradle snatching.”(Missy)_  
  
They’d landed on a giant spaceship stuck in the event horizon of a black hole, after receiving its distress call. This was it, the first field test for Missy who had been showing more and more signs of his old, old friend, before it had all gone so wrong. Who knew she needed to be a woman to get a new lease on sanity. Hope brewed bright in his chest as Missy played him and his companions like a fiddle, them to be the stars on the show and he their hidden souffleur on the TARDIS, whispering prompts into their earpieces. Not that she was playing to his script, of course. He happily played her straight man as she started to improvise. She wound up the companions with words as she used to do, for the sheer fun of it, and sashayed around the bridge, every bit the showrunner he could be.

Oh, he _wanted_ to show _this_ old-new version of her every interesting corner of the universe and let her show off to every audience they could find. If she could only stop playing the villain long enough for them to start playing together again, playing off each other while they explored every corner of creation they could run towards.

He felt as if bright stars popped into his chest, dancing in dazzling supernovas and blinding his eyes with the light of too many possible futures, altogether with her. To have a friend again he would not outlive, to have someone he could love for more than a season that he wouldn’t have to leave behind, who had lived as he had, who would live as he had.

Not long now. He just needed a little more hope to bridge the gap between this scaffolded skeleton of his friend and the full, shining revelation of her true self from underneath all the madness that had consumed her.  


**9.** “I _know because I grew up with him.” (Missy)_  
  
Missy knew the key to a good lie was a good truth. They had been so fully known to each other, the Doctor and she, so entwined. They had been circling again now, older, far more battered, slowly closer.

Would she know him again as she once had? Could she let herself have him again as she once had?

The thought was enough to make her tremble. The vulnerability. The immensity of such possession that he seemed to bear so easily and she had rejected. That he seemed to crave, creating pale, ephemeral shadows of it with his little pets.

She had started this dance, adversarial flirting a delightfully new and effective weapon in her repertoire with this new incarnation. The sheer joy of fucking with his mind on a completely different level. So satisfying it had been to see him flustered, see him blush. For all that… he had adapted quickly, as he always did, no matter the genius of her plan, following on her heels until he caught up and caught her.

He had taken her hand and oh, she wanted again. Had never stopped, really, only transmuted that passion. She’d never known moderation where he was concerned, only obsession.

She wished to have him again, not only in the moment before destruction but as a partner in her mischief. She just didn’t know if she could stand the intimacy.  


**8.** _“You see this madwoman sitting in this chair?” (The Doctor)_  
  
The perfect partner to a madman in a box, The Doctor didn’t say. It had been their secret, that he was as bad as she. That for all the wild ideas she had for the sheer joy of seeing them come alive, all the pranks and all the inventions. All the little manipulations and masterminding. The unrelenting desire for more, for new, for the unknown had been _his_.

It had made him as alien as her on a planet grown as stagnant and stodgy as Gallifrey, with its lifespans of millenia and its civilisation built on a billion years’ worth of knowledge. Above it all, outside it all. Just observers, uninvolved. With all of time and space at their fingertips whenever they wanted, they had had no desire to see any of it. As lazy with their exploration as humans were with their internet.

The sheer joy of finding a like mind, a mind that never seemed to stop finding or creating something exciting, had spurred him on to follow her. To help her and to cover for her. Even, when she slowed down, to provoke her and challenge her.

Until they had grown older, and their nature began to tell. The seeds sown by looking into the Untempered Schism began to grow. Had caused her to tip into the insanity of too-much too-intense when she thought of all of times and all the worlds beyond Gallifrey. Looking into eternity, where he’d found the only thing big enough to slake his infinite thirst for discovery. Had realised how long he’d have to live and how far he’d have to go before he would be able to rest.  


**7.** _“You don’t know it yet, but in a short time you will trust me with your life.”(The Doctor)_  
  
Missy knew very well, could feel how she was growing to trust him. Yet she was as helpless to stop it as the smurf that threatened them on the bridge of the ship they’d landed in, with a cute little gun. How similar she was to the little apes he usually dragged along behind him.

She wanted him, all his attention, to have his life and his death. To have and to hold and to squeeze until he was once again small enough to fit in her pocket.

He was the more dangerous one, still, appealing ever so softly to her soul, ever so carefully to her mind. Seduced her into wanting to follow him into the explosion of life only he could withstand for any length of time.

A surrender more complete than she could ever have in forcing him under her control. He had not been truly his even when she’d kept him in a bird cage as a trophy on a world she had ruled.

How, then, could she ever truly have him. But oh, he could have hear heart, mind and soul and she’d be too enraptured to utter any complaint.

All the beings in all of time and space fell at his feet when he courted their curiosity. He was its master after all.

Soon, hers too, because she could feel herself. Could feel herself matching him in his little verbal dances around the console of his precious TARDIS. Could feel herself delighted even when the time machine still spurned her and hovered over her Time Lord’s mind like a mother lion with only one cub.  


**6.** _“She’s my friend. She’s my oldest friend in the universe.” (The Doctor)_  
  
Wasn’t this the end to which it always came down? The Doctor asked himself. An endless desire to experience it all and share in the wonder. Building up in momentum and pleasure long enough only to be destroyed by stupid fear and over-weaning pride.

His stupid, stupid hubris, thinking he could teach all the wonders to Bill, the wide-eyed student who smiled in the face of the unknown as he once had. She had listened with all the exasperation of an apprentice near to graduating to journeyman, when he had laid out his plan for Missy. The grasping, eager thrill of hope had clashed so horribly with the fear of the near-to-having of the friend he’d once had, it had consumed all of his mind. He had to test it. He had to see if it was real.

When would he learn he couldn’t keep his dreams, even when they were fulfilled?

He had lost another bright mind to his pride. She was standing there, as irrevocably lost and dead as the Master had seemed, time after time. Even in this, he relived his first, best dream time and again. Was he doomed, then, to have the best of friends and lose them in the worst of ways?

And oh, Missy, was he to lose her too, just another go-round that ended in her self-destruction and his Pyrrhic victory?

Would he never learn not to be so dreadfully greedy? To grasp the company when it came his way?

He wanted it all. Wanted her, them together, exploring all for the rest of eternity. He was suddenly very sure this test would fail because he couldn’t leave well enough alone. Would break the heart that hadn’t already gone to pieces at the sight of his mentee with a great, big hole in her chest.  


**5.** _“She was my first friend. Always so brilliant, from the first day at the Academy. So fast, so funny. She was my man-crush.” (The Doctor)_  
  
The child that would become the Doctor had always been an outcast. The only one who questioned, feeling ignorant on a planet full of self-satisfied know-it-alls who knew _nothing_. He had left his family downcast, sorry to leave their indulgent incomprehension. The frown of that first teacher had been more cross than even his current face could manage.

With a round face and a bob cut and itchy robes he had been led to the eye that gazed into eternity. Had been terrified of the self-knowledge that had been forced upon them, of an endless, looping future, glimpses of himself in far-flung corners of the galaxy. It was too large for even an advanced mind when it had still been a child’s.

Shell-shocked he had wandered up to the venerable Academy for Young Time Lords, shining as gold as the rest of the immense snow-globe city. Others had been wide-eyed, but more prone to bravado or huddling together with friends. Friends he didn’t have, boy from the country that he was.

But here, _here_ had been this brilliant boy, proving how much of an illusion the other students’ composure was with the set of banging fireworks he’d set off simultaneously all over campus. The teachers had come running, sure there was an attack, screaming for the children to run for cover. Here had been this boy, grinning in the middle of it, daring them to accuse him. He’d confronted the pompous dicks’ ignorance like that every chance since.

The child he’d been had been bedazzled. The panache, the wide smile, not yet a smirk but mischievous enough to be assured of growing into one. He’d burst out clapping in the middle of a chaotic crowd and the boy had bowed. Had taken his hand and led him away at a run from the crowd before the second round of explosions would be set off. They’d watched the chaos of authorities arriving, students discombobulated on their first day, venerable Time Lords with their high, inscribed collars askew demanding someone tell them what was going on.

So brilliant.

And the boy had not left, had not closed off when he’d asked him all the questions running through his mind. For an audience of one, the mystery of the prank was unveiled. He’d been allowed behind the magician’s curtain and vowed to be a faithful assistance.

Because here was someone smart enough, fast enough, brilliant enough to share the future that terrified the child that would become the Doctor, even as he’d felt the truth of it down to his bones.  


**4.** _“Every star in the universe, we were going to see them all.” (The Doctor)_  
  
The loss of her had hurt too much. Had opened up a hunger for friends as never-ending as his thirst for exploration. It had been a dream he’d let himself really, truly believe. Let himself believe even after she’d left, swearing she’d hurt him, destroy him. He’d thought, once upon a time that he could make her better. Could make everything better. Let himself believe in a happy ending that’d come to the hero who persevered and called himself The Doctor.

Still, he was alone and young and had a world of expectations riding on his shoulder. He’d spent a lifetime living up to them until grief and alienation had finally driven him off-planet. He wanted to see if he could have some part of his dream, escape the living hell that was the loneliness of being so utterly different.

He found he could have a semblance of his dream and lived off that. Tried to find out why the universe kept on going when everyone seemed so set on destroying it all. If he could find the answer, perhaps he could have his friend back.  


**3.** _“Idiot.” (Missy)_  
  
Always burning bright, this boy, since the first day Missy’d captured him. Such a colourful butterfly flapping his wings just for her.

She found she could keep him.

For a time.

Until he’d grown beyond her. Was more, could handle more. Could contain and cradle and celebrate the universe while she cringed from it. She wanted to destroy it so it would stop screaming at her.

But oh, when he was close, when he spoke gently, everything seemed so calm.

She felt as she once had, so young. And just as infatuated with the friend who looked at her as if she could be as large and powerful as he. Could embrace the universe and only laugh in delight.

So she played along to the sweet, seductive song of him as he stepped into the limelight. As she watched him catch up to her former regeneration with the same ease he always did.  


**2.** _“I was secretly on your side all along, you silly little sausage.” (Missy)_  
  
Too good to be true, wasn’t that what it always turned out to be? The Master and Missy, they left him in life and in death, in time and destruction.

She kept coming back, the temptress, baiting him with his deepest desire before blowing it up in his face.

His best self, his whole heart on his sleeve, expressed with all the eloquence he possessed, had not been enough, for either the Master who’d come back to plague him and Missy who had teased him with the hope of reunion.

He wished to believe her, even now, but the face that had died in his arms - the worst time, when he’d not just been alone but extinct - simply to spite him was _right there_. Who left him after mocking him as he always had since that first time.

Not that he wouldn’t hold open this door. Even if it killed him. He loved her with all he had. Always wanted more. Even if all he got turned out to be false promises, so sweet until it turned as bitter as arsenic.  


**1.** _“Thanks for trying.” (Missy)_  
  
Missy laughed as she lay dying. Perfect self-destruction.

She could not allow himself to escape and leave the Doctor again, losing him. He could not allow her to walk away and join the Doctor, having what he couldn’t keep without destroying it. The perfect confluence of conflict that had her reject him and chase him and capture him and escape him her entire life.

She wanted to have him. She could not bear to have him.

Yes, yes, better to die here, on the cusp. Where he was withing her grasp but she had not yet burned her hands when she tried to hold him.

Like the sun, like eternity her bright, bright boy would burn and she would finally have peace.  


**0.** _“Doctor.” (Missy)_  
  
The Doctor remembered.

They were all gone.

She was gone.

She might come back.

He wondered what it had been like, to be a woman. Would she be one, next time they met?

Even when he clenched his fists to stave off the regeneration. No, thirteen lives was enough.

He’d never tried. Never felt the need to be so very different himself each life when the universe held endless opportunity for exploring. More of a hassle, really, to keep on rediscovering his own person when that wasn’t what interested him at all.

 _She’d_ seemed to enjoy it, though. She’d recovered a flair and air of devilment she’d lost lifetimes ago. Was it such a pleasure, to change genders? Was that why she’d done it?

He wavered.

He was so tired, so done. It hurt so much more, to lose himself and die every time. There was so much more of himself to lose every time regeneration came around. Two thousand years - or was it more? - that died and was reborn in an instant.

Even Time Lords weren’t meant to live forever. The new regeneration cycle had helped him save the universe, the last time, but it was time to end.

He’d already rebelled with _this_ body, back to the age he’d really felt himself to be. Open about being an old man.

He didn’t need to start getting fancy now. No new tricks. No.

And she was gone.

She might not come back.

Still… she’d always had the best ideas.

Perhaps…

But no.

The idea firmly settled into his subconscious, however, taking root even as he wrestled with exhaustion with life. Met his own disheartened self, the one who’d fled Gallifrey when the loss of his friend had finally become too much.

What would it be like, to change one’s outlook more radically, gender as well as face? Would some of his joie-de-vivre revive, as it had done in her?

*

The Doctor looked at her new face in the screen.  
  
**13.** _“Brilliant.”(The Doctor)_  
  



End file.
